1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a vehicular display system, and more particularly to a display system in which objects external to a host vehicle are dynamically displayed in a representation of three dimensional spherical space on a two dimensional screen in locations proportional, and scaled, to their respective distances and locations from the host vehicle. The display system of the invention is especially suitable for use in an aircraft collision avoidance system, but also has numerous other potential uses in the fields of navigation, education, and entertainment, and in vehicular contexts ranging from automobiles to submarines to space craft.
2. Description of Related Art
At present, no commercially available or Federal Aviation Administration approved aircraft collision avoidance system (CAS) exists for the hundreds of thousands of small private aircraft in use in the United States, and millions of like aircraft throughout the rest of the world. Existing CAS's used in much larger airframes are limited in their efficacy because they are too expensive, too large, and too heavy for small civilian aircraft, and because they present the display data in a two dimensional format which requires extensive training and experience to master.
A main problem with existing vehicular collision and navigational display systems is that they incorporate too much alphanumeric data for the average user to interpret in the time available. The average user tends to become confused when too much alphanumeric data is presented to him or her for interpretation in too short a time.
A prime example of this problem is in the display conventionally used by air traffic controllers, a flat and two-dimensional display which presents multiple flight-paths for various aircraft to the controller in such a way that the controller is left with the responsibility of digesting information on each flight path, and converting the information mentally into a three dimensional picture that controllers have to hold in their heads and update in real-time while at the same time holding verbal conversations with overstressed pilots.
In order to avoid this problem, not only in the air traffic context, but also in the context of vehicular collision and navigational display systems in general, and also in numerous other fields in which the problem of presenting multi-dimensional information on a two-dimensional screen is present, it would be desirable to provide a display in which alphanumeric data is not required and yet the same information will be immediately conveyed to the user without the need for sophisticated interpretation. Such a display would enable the user to utilize the data in a more effective, efficient, and natural way, alleviating stress and enhancing user responses to emergency situations. It would also permit use by users of all nationalities, including those which use character based writing systems.